20 species in all common to these two volumes, and no remarkable genera.

The Orders of any magnitude absent from both are Berberideæ, Cistineæ, Ternstroemiaceæ, and Dipterocarpeæ.

The general result, then, of the above comparison is, that the Orders between Ranunculaceae and Leguminosa are all but the same in number in the Cape and Australia, and only differ in kind by about five Orders in each country; that the genera are much fewer in the Cape, but a larger proportion of these is endemic; whilst the species are not only more numerous at the Cape, but far more restricted to that area.

With regard to the representation of Northern forms in each Flora, Australia certainly is the richest, both as to the number of genera and species, and as to the character of them. With the exception of Thalictrum minus, there is no Cape plant of so boreal a character as Stellaria glauca, Sagina procumbens, Montia fontana, and several other plants found abundantly in the Australian and Tasmanian Alps, but absent in South Africa. This is a most suggestive fact, if considered in connection with that of there being an almost continuous continental extension between South Africa and Northern Europe, whilst Australia is an isolated continent.

The data supplied by these two volumes, however, justify nothing beyond a comparison of the prevalent conditions of those parts of the Floras which they respectively most fully and faithfully describe; and we shall wait their continuation with impatience, feeling sure that many more curious and instructive points will be brought out in them, and ample scope afforded for working the question of the origin of that host of endemic forms they each contain, by variation from a few pre-existing types, characteristic of countries from which their whole Floras may wholly or in part have been derived. So far as at present appears, the Australian Flora is the most complicated, though least rich of the two, consisting of Indian, European, and Antarctic types, vastly outnumbered by Australian endemic forms, that may or may not have arisen by variation and natural selection from the Indian and Antarctic. The Cape Flora consists of Indian types common to tropical Africa, and of a few European ones, both outnumbered by endemic Cape forms, which are more obviously derivable by variation and selection from the European and Indian Floras than the Australian endemic ones are from the Indian and Antarctic.

L.-CLIMATE: AN INQUIRY INTO THE CAUSES OF ITS DIFFERENCES, AND INTO ITS INfluence on VEGETABLE LIFE. By C. Daubeny, M.D., F.R.S.

THE Natural History Society of Torquay having elected Dr. Daubeny an honorary member, he could not but accede to the request made to him by some of the members, that he should give them a few lectures during his stay in their neighbourhood last winter. This was very considerate and wise of Dr. Daubeny, for at little strain upon himself he was able at once to gratify and instruct his friends; as, indeed, we all of us ought to be willing to do whenever our turn comes round. But matters did not stop here, for at the special request of a Master in Chancery, as it would seem from the dedicatory inscription, the lectures were dispatched to the printers. The result is an octavo volume, published by subscription, of some 140 pages, bearing the title which heads this notice.

Our opinion is that these lectures, although well suited for their original purpose, were not worth printing. We observe nothing new of importance in them; little that is old put in a new light; and there are numerous inaccuracies scattered through the book which render it in no way creditable to the author, whose honoured name we regret to find endorsing so much questionable matter. The lectures are four in number. The first and second refer almost exclusively to Climate, and discuss the relations of temperature to latitude, actual and normal temperatures, local causes affecting temperature, a polar sea, probable greater preponderance of water during an early period of the earth's history, temperature of the soil, humidity, winds, ozone, and the like. Upon the author's general observations under these heads we have nothing to comment. In the third lecture an attempt is made to explain the influence of climate upon vegetation, wild and cultivated species being distinguished, and some little detail entered into with reference to some of the more important food-producing plants. Mr. Darwin's theory is of course referred to; Dr. Daubeny inclining to withhold his assent to the whole thing until some vast gaps, which he alludes to, are bridged over. The fourth lecture relates mainly to the power of man in modifying climate, whether for better or worse, and the subject of acclimatisation; winding up with a reference to the "combination of circumstances" which render Torquay suitable as a winter residence for invalids.

At the commencement of his third lecture, Dr. Daubeny speaks of all Flowering plants as being divided into those with one germinal leaf or cotyledon, and those with two. He goes on to say that these two classes present the most marked differences in their structure, growth and mode of flowering, and that "from a review of these differences it will be obvious, that whilst dicotyledons are, as a rule, best adapted for cold climates, monocotyledons are equally so for warm ones." The differences in structure which generally obtain

between dicotyledons and monocotyledons, it is true, are usually very marked; but these differences are by no means of either the kind or extent Dr. Daubeny here endeavours to make out. The excuse may be offered that his explanation was not intended for a scientific, but for a general audience. But this will scarcely serve to palliate the gross inaccuracy of his statements, which run thus:-" Dicotyledonous plants, such as those which constitute the forests of this and other moderately warm climates, consist of a series of concentric layers of wood and bark, between each of which we may suppose a stratum of confined air to be interposed." And, " monocotyledonous trees, of which palms afford us the most familiar examples, consist merely of one hard concentric layer of ligneous matter, inclosing a soft pulpy substance, full of juice." Dr. Daubeny says it cannot "be wondered at that they (Dicotyledons) should be tolerant of cold, both when we consider the slowly conducting power of dry wood of all descriptions, and also that of the air detained within the interstices of the timber itself." Were the structure of these two grand types what they are here represented, we might indeed be willing to grant, as consequent on such structure, that Dicotyledons "should be tolerant of cold," while Monocotyledons, might be, on the other hand, "very susceptible of freezing." But since Dicotyledons do not consist of concentric layers of wood and bark, with a stratum of confined air interposed between each of them, but of concentric and continuous layers of wood enclosed in a layer of bark, organically continuous, and without the interposition of any air-stratum whatever between any of the layers, we fail to find the structural advantage they possess, which would lead us à priori to the conclusion that these plants were specially fitted for cool and moderately warm climates. Dr. Daubeny, we think, leaves it to be inferred that Dicotyledons especially affect such climates, which is very far from being the case, An infinitely greater number of the giants of tropical forests are Dicotyledonous than Monocotyledonous. With regard to the comparative rarity of Palms beyond the tropics, it is true they do occur only as stragglers in cool climates, but we cannot conceive that the internal structure of their stems has anything whatever to do with determining the limit of their distribution. The circumstance of their growing usually with a single, exposed, continuously unfolding terminal bud might perhaps be alleged as one reason why a warm climate is needful to them, but the difficulties of predicating, on structural data, the capabilities of plants in respect to climate, and the inconsistencies in which we get involved when we attempt it, are such that, excepting in cases to which familiar physical causes directly apply, we think, in the present state of our knowledge, speculations of this kind are quite useless. What notion the members of the Torquay Natural History Society retain of the internal structure of Palm-stems it is difficult to say. Dr. Daubeny's account of them applies much better to Tree-ferns, or indeed to young branches of the Elder. The "marked difference" in the mode of

flowering of Dicotyledons and Monocotyledons does not appear to be explained.

The lecturer goes on to say "that of the Dicotyledonous trees, which belong to temperate regions, those which extend farthest to the north are either protected from cold by numerous layers of bark, as is the case with the Birch, or else are provided with juices not susceptible of freezing, such as the essential oil, which occupies the socalled turpentine-vessels found in the bark and wood of the Coniferae." This is very bad. The essential oil is a secretion, usually confined to distinct reservoirs, and not a juice or sap. The layers of birch bark may be thick enough to hold water' for household, but certainly not, we think, for Dr. Daubeny's theoretical purposes.

An endeavour is made to show that "herbaceous plants, whose roots sink very little below the surface, will be ill adapted in general for either extreme of climate, flourishing neither amongst the frosts of the polar regions, nor yet amidst the scorching heats of the tropics." We very much need statistics upon the relative proportions of herbaceous and ligneous species in different Floras. The most woody Flora which has specially engaged our attention is, we think, that of Japan, where the climate is neither tropical nor arctic, and yet where we reckon ligneous species to form nearly 40 per cent. of the whole. It may be borne in mind that Palms, an eminently tropieal group, form no tap-root.

With regard to the food afforded by species of Manihot in South America, Dr. Daubeny refers to but one species, though in his list of " additions, &c.," he speaks, on the authority of the Archbishop of Dublin, of another variety. Two species, Manihot Aipi and M. utilissima, the former sweet, the latter bitter Cassava, are described, with their respective varieties, and figured by Pohl, in his “ Plantarum Brasiliae Icones, &c." Tapioca, Dr. Daubeny states to be the same as Cassava; that it is the name under which the latter is imported into Europe. We have always understood differently; that the fine starch, from which the Tapioca is ultimately prepared, ⚫ settles down from the water in which the Cassava is washed.

Dr. Daubeny states that in Norway Wheat is cultivated as high as Drontheim, in lat. 59°; in Sweden up to the 63° parallel. It would be remarkable were the western limit the lower, with the influence of the Gulf-stream so directly playing upon it. But Drontheim is in latitude about 63° 25' according to our best Norwegian map, and Schübeler gives the northern limit of Wheat in the map accompanying his interesting "Culturpflanzen Norwegens" at 640 40. The same botanist gives the northern limit of Rye in Norway at 69° 30′, of Oats at 69o.

Who are the Messrs. Favre and Goudin referred to at page 100, as in contradiction upon the transformation of Aegilops into Wheat? We presume Fabre and Godron. Dr. Daubeny does not venture, he says, "to bring forward the case of the Aegilops as affording any independent support to the doctrine of Darwin regarding the gradual

transmutation of species, although those who are already persuaded of the truth of that hypothesis, may feel themselves justified in interpreting the facts observed by M. Favre in accordance with it." It is much better, we should say, that he does not venture, for, writing with some specimens of M. Fabre's Aegilops and Triticum before us, we cannot think there can be much doubt but that M. Godron, confirmed as he has been by Planchon and others, is right in regarding the connecting links as hybrids.

Some of the author's observations in his fourth lecture upon the sense in which the term acclimatisation can be applied to the vegetable kingdom," appear to us very sensible, and at the present time opportune.

A list of plants, too tender to be grown in the open air in the Botanical Garden, Oxford, but which bear exposure in the Scilly Islands, or near Falmouth, is given in an appendix; also a list of plants killed or affected by the winter of 1860-61 in the Oxford Garden.

Should a second edition of these lectures be called for, we trust that Dr. Daubeny will not let them go to press without revision and amendment.

LI.—CONSIDÉRATIONS SUR LA MÉTHODE NATURELLE EN BOTANIQUE. By P. Parlatore. Florence. 1863.

WERE it not that we personally know Professor Parlatore to be a most good-natured and harmless man, we should have set him down at once, on the first glance through this brochure of his, as a dangerous character and not to be trusted with a dissecting knife; for any one now-a-days professing himself a thorough-going reformer, whether in the scientific or political world, we are naturally prone to suspect. On going through the pages of this essay more carefully, we are surprised to find that the author has found time to devote himself to what is of so little practical use, while the elaboration of the Conifers for the Prodromus, and of his valuable "Flora Italiana," might have employed him with much greater advantage to the botanical world as well as to himself.

We believe that Parlatore seriously thinks that he is laying the foundation of a Natural Method, "qui restera toujours dans la science"! It has been growing upon him for a long time that botanists are all in the wrong, or, at any rate, only partially in the right, in the matter of their so-called Natural System. One and twenty years ago he began to be dissatisfied with the recognised principles upon which the Jussieuan and De Candollean systems are based, imagining that botanists depended too exclusively upon single characters, or characters afforded by single sets of organs. And this is the burden of his complaint, some seventy pages through. But every one else complains of the same thing, and every one, at the same

N. H. R.-1863.

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